Research Skills & Tools

In this section of the Information Literacy Tutorial you will learn how to search the library catalog and online databases more effectively. You will learn how to develop research strategies, which tools will help you find the types of resources you need, how to use search tools effectively to narrow and/or broaden your searches, the differences between subject and keyword searching, and how to correctly interpret search results/records.

The Search Process: Begin by searching for your keywords in the library catalog and online databases. Databases and catalogs search the records of every item in them and provide a list of matching results, usually in the form of a citation. A citation provides all or most of the information needed to locate the item it is describing in either print or electronic form.

A citation in a catalog provides the call number for the item and all of
its bibliographic information (author, title, date of publication, place of
publication and publisher).

A brief record in an online periodical database usually contains all of
the information that is included in a bibliographic citation. In most
databases, clicking on the article’s title will take you to the full record
which includes:

the bibliographic information broken down into its labeled parts (author,
title, source),

subject headers/descriptors that describe the general topics of the
article,

an abstract or brief summary of the article, and

sometimes there will be a hot link to the full text of the article.

The default search in most catalogs and online periodical databases
is a keyword search. The database retrieves items that have your search
term anywhere in the item’s record (any part of the bibliographic citation,
abstract, or the full text of the article).

Advanced Searching Methods

Combining Terms with Boolean Operators

AND will retrieve items indexed by both terms. AND is useful
when you are retrieving too many items in your searches – it helps you
narrow your search and retrieve smaller result sets.Example: ground water AND contamination

OR will retrieve items that are indexed by either or both search
terms. OR is useful when you need to find more resources – it helps
you broaden your search and retrieve larger result sets.Example: groundwater OR ground water

NOT will retrieve items that are described by one search term
but not by the other search term. NOT is useful when you are
retrieving items that are not really related to your topic – it helps
you narrow your search and be more exacting.Example: ((ground NOT lake) AND water) AND contamination

Wildcard (?) and Truncation (*) Symbols are used to create
searches where there are unknown characters, multiple spellings or various
endings. Neither the wildcard nor the truncation symbol can be used as the
first character in a search term.

The wildcard is represented by a question mark (?).
To use the wildcard, enter your search terms and replace each unknown
character with a ?. The database finds all citations of that
word with the ? replaced by a letter. Example: type ne?t
to find all citations containing neat, nest or next. Net is not
included in the results because the wildcard replaces a single
character.

Truncation is represented by an asterisk (*). To use truncation,
enter the root of a search term and replace the ending with
an *.
The database finds all forms of that word. Example: type comput*
to find the words computer or computing.

Proximity Searching is used to search for two or more words that occur
within a specified number of words (or fewer) of each other in the
database(s). Proximity searching is used with a keyword or Boolean search.
The proximity operators are composed of a letter (N or W) and a number
(to specify the number of words). The proximity operator is placed between
the words that are to be searched, as follows:

Near Operator (N) — N5 finds the words if they are within
five words of one another regardless of the order in which they appear.Example: type tax N5 reform to find results that would match
tax reform as well as reform of income tax.

Within Operator (W) – In the following example, W8 finds
the words if they are within eight words of one another and in the order
in which uou entered them. Example: type tax W8 reform to find
results that would match tax reform but would not match reform of
income tax.